Cartoners are useful for placing various goods in packaging cartons. A cartoner feeds flat, folded carton blanks from a stack in sequence onto a conveyor, erects each of the blanks into a carton and presents the cartons at a loading station to be filled either manually or automatically with a product load. The cartoner usually conveys the cartons in a linear path along a packaging line. A product bucket conveyor conveys product loads to the loading station to be inserted into the cartons before they are sealed. Typically, the bucket conveyor conveys the product loads in a linear product path parallel and adjacent to the cartoner. The motion of the erected cartons and product loads is synchronized for product insertion by means of a barrel loader having extensible pushers moving in transverse orientation to the machine direction and selectively extensible laterally to push product loads from conveyor buckets into respective synchronized carton.
In addition to inserting product loads into the cartons, it is often desirable to include a product coupon or a leaflet containing written material such as the contents of the product or instructions for using the product. Accordingly, leaflet inserting equipment must be positioned in the packaging line with the cartoner and the barrel loader such that the leaflets are finally included in the filled cartons. The leaflets are inserted into cartons either prior to the insertion of the product loads along with the product loads or thereafter and are inserted into product buckets for later carton insertion. Existing leaflet inserting devices are complicated pieces of equipment which utilize many intricate parts including various gears and chains arranged at various height levels with respect to the cartoner. Moreover, many of these leaflet inserters are expensive to assemble and maintain in proper working condition, often needing constant adjustment. Still further, because of the intricacies of the existing leaflet inserter devices and their continuous engagement with the cartoner, they often add additional time to the packaging process which translates into increased costs in the packaging of particular goods. Accordingly, there is a need for a leaflet inserter which operates with a minimal number of intricate parts and which is readily assembled and easily and inexpensively maintained in proper working condition. Furthermore, there is a need for a leaflet inserter which does not substantially slow down the packaging process as the leaflet is inserted into a carton.
Another problem encountered in the packaging of product loads into a carton is the necessity of having various different pieces of conveying and loading equipment, all of which must cooperate in order to properly package the goods. A conventional way of loading cartons has been to utilize a product bucket conveyor which receives individual product loads and carries them along a product path next to a respective carton. At a predetermined position along the product path, the plunger arm of an adjacent barrel loader on one side of the bucket conveyor engages the product load and pushes the product load from the product bucket into a synchronized carton on the other side of the bucket conveyor. The various plunger arms and pushing mechanisms of the barrel loader must be synchronized to extend into the product buckets as they pass the loader to eject the product load. The pushing mechanism must then withdraw to eventually realign with another bucket following behind the emptied product buckets. An example of such a barrel loader is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,927 which is commonly owned with the present application.
Such a configuration yields a machine footprint on a factory floor which is three units wide. That is, at a position along the packaging line, the cartoner, bucket conveyor, and barrel loader are placed side by side one another to operate in a timed sequence. As may be appreciated, such a configuration occupies a substantial amount of precious space on a factory floor.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an improved cartoner while eliminating the need for the typical barrel loader.
When each bucket is to contain a plurality of product items, the loading of the buckets becomes complicated and often requires further complex machinery to produce a full, correctly oriented load for each product bucket. If each carton is to eventually contain a plurality of items, such as for example, pouches of drink mix or other individual items, a full load of such pouches must be deposited in the bucket. If done one at a time, the pouches could tip over and interfere with incoming pouches, and the homogeneity of the product load could otherwise be disturbed.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved cartoner requiring a smaller factory floor footprint and which simplifies the packaging process while maintaining the integrity of the loading procedure without increasing the necessary packaging time. Still further, there is a need for an improved cartoner which reduces the complicated interaction between various equipment lines.